The Primeval Era-Chapter 111: Setting Off

Back in the village.

Damian stood on the crimson-blue wall, grasping multiple spears in his hands. Bone spears, nothing crazy by any chance. Simple weapons crafted from the remains of Primal Beasts hunted by the tribe over generations. Their tips were sharp enough, their shafts sturdy enough, but they held no Mana and no special qualities.

They were the best the Purple Stone Tribe had to offer.

And they weren’t enough for what was coming.

Focusing on expanding his knowledge regarding cultivation and forming his own doctrines, he still had many points to understand and manipulate about his Second Doctrine. Right now, whenever he utilized that single letter of Persevere, everything painted with his blood benefited from his cultivation. The lifeforms he was connected to benefited as well, regardless of distance.

So he didn’t fully know what was happening with the Noble Beast Tiaret on that distant mountain every time he spoke that letter of the Primordial Tongue. But it should be a surge of Mana and potentially blue flames, nothing too eye-catching, right?

He hoped so.

The last thing he needed was to accidentally expose her or himself to the Noble Beasts investigating her recovery. But that was a problem for another time.

Right now, he was choosing something he could carry into battle.

Five spears rested in his hands. Simple weapons about to become something more.

"Persevere."

HUUUM!

Blue flames erupted around his body as blood flowed freely from his palms. Crimson rivers lined with stellar blue particles poured onto the bone spears, soaking into their surfaces with hungry intent. The flames followed, wrapping around each weapon and sinking into the blood-soaked bone.

The spears began changing before his eyes.

Their color shifted from pale white to deep crimson. Their texture grew denser, more refined. Within moments, the transformation completed, and they had hardened into crimson-blue weapons almost metallic in quality. Their surfaces gleamed like the walls of the tribe, their tips impossibly sharp, their shafts humming with Mana connected to Damian’s very essence.

They were part of him now.

Just like the walls. Just like the mountain he had raised.

Turning around, he saw blue flames still flickering on his body and the wall beneath his feet and even the distant mountain outside the tribe. The ritual he had performed earlier had left residual power everywhere, traces of the Primordial Tongue pulsing with faint radiance.

Uncle Adam stood nearby, pride and worry warring across his weathered face.

Grandmother Essun watched with those shrewd eyes. The Chieftain leaned on his staff. And Serala waited with the patience of someone trained for exactly such moments.

Damian approached them and gave one spear to Uncle Adam.

The old soldier took it with trembling hands, not from weakness but from emotion. The weapon hummed against his palm the moment his fingers wrapped around the shaft.

Another spear went to Grandmother Essun. The wisewoman cackled as she accepted it, gnarled fingers stroking the crimson-blue surface with appreciation. Her staff lay forgotten at her side. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

One more went to the Chieftain. The old leader’s eyes widened as Mana saturated his senses through the weapon. This was beyond anything the Purple Stone Tribe had ever possessed!

The fourth went to Serala. The Holy Daughter took it with grace, wing-shaped pupils studying the weapon with cultivation knowledge exceeding everyone else present. She nodded once, acknowledging its quality without excessive praise.

Damian kept the fifth for himself.

He had already talked with Uncle Adam about staying with the tribe. Masamuk had also ordered the Inkanyamba to remain here, the Behemoth’s massive form coiled in the plains beyond the walls where it could watch for threats while maintaining communication with other Beast Lords.

So the only ones setting off toward a great battle were Damian, Serala, and Masamuk.

Three against an Imperator and her forces.

It should have seemed like madness. Perhaps it was!

Looking at Uncle Adam, Damian could see the unwillingness written across every line of that weathered face. Eight years of protecting his Young Lugal, and now he had to send him into danger alone. But someone of his stature was currently not where he needed to be, and Damian couldn’t risk his life when it could be taken away completely before he could even utilize the Primordial Tongue.

If Uncle Adam fell beyond the reach of those flames, fell in a way that couldn’t be undone...

It was unacceptable.

"We’ll be back soon enough. If anything happens, Inkanyamba here will communicate through Masamuk, okay?"

The goodbyes had already been said. The plans laid out. The preparations made.

Grandmother Essun smiled and nodded.

"Be safe, Tokoloshe."

Uncle Adam spoke grandly.

"Be safe, Young Lugal. I... will cultivate while waiting for you."

Damian nodded toward him and also smiled toward Elena, the Chieftain’s daughter standing at the edge of the gathering. She seemed more and more distant as things changed around them all. The boy she had known as a fellow Dross farmer was becoming something else entirely, something belonging to legends rather than fields.

She managed to smile back and raised her little fist in encouragement.

Cloudy blue flames flickered beneath Damian’s feet as he began flying off the wall.

Radiant wings expanded behind the Holy Daughter nearby.

White-blue light blazed from her back as the Wings of the Radiant Dawn manifested in full glory. Her newly achieved Vessel Completion made them larger and brighter than before, each feather defined with precision speaking of power refined across generations. She rose alongside him.

Masamuk ascended as well, obsidian crackles of Mana forming beneath the slime’s body. Stellar blue points danced within that dark form, crimson eyes gleaming with anticipation.

The party of three took to the skies and began crossing the Lands of Stone.

The young man and woman each held a spear burning with Mana and reinforced blue flames. They flew in formation, Damian at the center with Serala to his right and Masamuk floating near his shoulder. From below, they must have looked like something from the old stories. Warriors ascending toward destiny. Heroes departing for battle!

Children... flying away for War.

Grandmother Essun watched them go until they became specks against the afternoon sky.

Her mind wandered to an old legend, a story her grandmother had told her, passed down through generations until its origins had been forgotten entirely. The Legend of Anansi’s Children.

There were many variations of the Legends of Anansi. Some good, some bad. Some a savior, some a deciever.

It spoke of a time before the Three Pillars, before the empires, before humans had learned to build walls or forge weapons. A trickster walked the Lands of Stone in those days. Some called him Anansi, the Weaver of Lies, the Spinner of Fates. He wore many faces and spoke many tongues, and his hunger was endless.

Anansi would come to villages disguised as a traveling shaman. He promised power to the young. Flight. Strength. The ability to soar above the struggles keeping their families bound to the earth. And the young, eager and foolish, would accept his gifts without understanding their cost.

They would fly away from their villages with joy in their hearts. Their families would watch them go, proud and hopeful, believing their children were ascending to greatness.

But the children never returned.

Anansi had not given them wings. He had given them the illusion of wings. And somewhere beyond the horizon, where no one could see, he would catch them in webs of shadow and consume their very souls.

The legend ended with a warning. When your children fly away, watch the horizon carefully. If they look back, they will return. If they do not, Anansi has already claimed them.

Of course, that wasn’t what was happening here, right?

Grandmother Essun shook her head. The Tokoloshe was no child. The Holy Daughter was no fool. And that strange slime... well, she suspected Anansi himself would steer clear from something like Masamuk.

She stroked the spear the Tokoloshe had left behind. It hummed against her palm, warm and alive, connected to a young man flying toward danger with the same calm expression he wore when harvesting crops.

He would come back.

They would all come back.

She believed this. She had to believe this.

But still, she watched the horizon until she could see them no more.